I'm putting a curse on Storkcraft's heads. I realize that Storkcraft is a company and therefore has no heads, so I can't really put a curse on them, but I am anyway.
I have loved our cribs. I love the color, the drawer underneath, the dropside (very convenient when you're my height), and how sturdy they are. But they were just recalled for the
second time in less than a year!!!! That's ludicrous if you ask me. This time it was the dropside that caused the recall. Apparently the side has broken off and several kids have fallen through, suffocated and died. Okay, good reason for the recall, but
come on! My kids need to sleep somewhere!
So when I read the news on Tuesday I was faced with a dilema: Do I put the kids in pack-n-plays and wait for the new parts or do I convert their cribs to toddler beds (thus removing the offending dropside)?* After some thought I realized that the pack-n-plays would not work. My kids are VERY active - they love to shake the sides of their crib and jump like crazy (they get about a foot off the mattress). They're at the very top of the height and weight limit - Joshua is exactly at the highest limit on both weight and height - and I know that an extended amount of time in those pack-n-plays would not be safe or comfortable. My feelings on that were confirmed this weekend when we had the kids sleep in their pack-n-plays in Vegas. Joshua screamed and screamed because he hated being so cramped up in his pack-n-play (he was in the twin one - the largest available).
So toddler beds were pretty much our only choice. Actually, a friend very kindly offered to let us borrow her crib, but I just couldn't imagine taking the cribs apart, trying to find a place to store them and all of the stuff in the drawers, putting other cribs together, then doing it all again in two months. Yuck.
So I took of the dropside, put on bedrails, made sure their room was secure (anchored furniture the wall, etc.), and put the kids in their "bid kid beds." The first night went great. They went right to sleep.
The next morning Joshua was trying to lean over the bedrail to get his blanket - that he had thrown on to the floor - and he ended up flipping right out of his bed and onto the floor. I was right there, getting Lissa, when it happened so was able to give him comfort and he wasn't hurt, but we decided we should probably teach them the right way to get in and out. So I spent some time in the afternoon teaching them to get in and out of their beds. I know, I'm crazy, but I figured I'd rather have them out of their beds going crazy, then falling out and getting hurt.
When they went to bed that night, they did great. When they woke up in the morning, they got out of their beds and read some books. Correction, Lissa read books while Joshua took all of them off of the bookshelf.
So far so good, right?
Yesterday, Aunt Lissa was watching the kids while we were at the game. When she put them down for their nap, they just got out of their beds and ran around screaming. After 30 minutes, she brought them back downstairs and gave them some more time to get tired (they had slept some in the car on the drive home from Vegas). When she put them to bed later, they went right to sleep. We didn't have much of a problem last night either.
Then today came. Oh, it had to come, didn't it?? First of all, Church was a nightmare. The kids were so tired from their crazy weekend that they just screamed and cried at the top of their lungs for a good 30 minutes (we had left the Chapel and were in the Relief Society room where we could still hear the talks, but not have the kids ruining things for everyone else). We finally went home early so we could put the kids down for a much needed nap.
When we put the kids in bed do you think they slept? Of course not! They ran around playing and yelling. They found everything that they shouldn't get into (all of the stuff I missed when childproofing). It was a disaster area in there. Joshua finally fell asleep and Lissa wandered around bored and finally read some books.
We had to get them up around lunch time since we knew they were going to need more sleep (a second nap) and the only way to have that happen was to not let them sleep too long in this first nap. When we put them down the second time, we had the same result - caos. But this time I decided to use Supernanny's method. The first time we went back in, we put them in their beds, tucked them in, and said goodnight. Everytime after that, we just put them back in their beds without saying a word. It only took a total of three times. I really hope this method works fast.
A curse on Storkcraft's heads!
*At no point did I consider leaving the kids in their cribs as is. I take safety matters very seriously and do not want to risk my kids' lives because "nothing has happened yet, it'll be fine, if something were going to happen it would've happen by now" - in my mind those are famous last words. Yes, this is a hassle, but my kids' safety and lives are worth the hassle.
